6:52 PM, April 3, 2014

Doug Rothwell

Detroit Free Press Business Columnist

Jeff Fettig

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Michigan has made some headway since 2009 toward the lofty goal of becoming a Top 10 state in job growth and incomes, but in two crucial areas — education and the condition of roads and highways — still lags well behind most of the nation and is even losing ground by some measures.

Both the gains and frustrations of Michigan’s struggle to rebuild its battered economy are addressed in a new update by Business Leaders for Michigan (BLM) of the Michigan Turnaround Plan first issued nearly five years ago by the the statewide group of 85 corporate CEOs and university presidents.

“About one-third of the original Michigan Turnaround Plan has been accomplished, with impressive results,” said Jeff Fettig, BLM board chairman and CEO of appliance maker Whirlpool, based in Benton Harbor.

BLM released an update of the plan Thursday, along with a 30-second TV ad and 60-second radio spot that will air across the state between now and June. The message is simple: progress is under way, momentum is building, but Michigan is digging itself out of a huge hole and cannot afford complacency.

On the plus side, the state has added 250,000 jobs since 2009 and cut its long-term debt by $20 billion.

“Michigan continues to recover faster than most states” from the Great Recession, the BLM report said, “but has more ground to make up.”

From 2008 to 2012, Michigan’s rank among the states edged up from 50th to 44th in employment; from 38th to 36th in personal income, and from 40th to 38th in economic growth.

Meanwhile, the state ranks 45th in the condition of its urban roads, the BLM report said.

Even more sobering is data released this week from National Assessment of Educational Progress exams, showing that Michigan’s 4th-, 8th- and 12th-grade students not only score below the national average in math and reading, but also that many other states have shown faster improvement during 2003-13.

On the brighter side, said BLM President Doug Rothwell, Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposed 6% boost in next year’s higher education budget would be the biggest boost in more than a decade.

“I think this can be a breakthrough year for investment in higher ed,” Rothwell said.

Along with efforts to make college more affordable, Michigan must also do more to retain college grads and be more welcoming to attract top talent from other states and countries, the BLM report recommends.

Fettig acknowledged that talent attraction and retention is also a chicken-and-egg situation for major employers, pointing out that “Michigan needs more college graduates andthe jobs to keep them here.”

Whirlpool, he said, sells 52% of its products outside the U.S., but has boosted employment in Michigan from 2,600 to 4,000 people in the past eight years.

BLM’s first turnaround plan in 2009 coincided with the expansion of what was then called the Detroit Renaissance group of CEOs into a statewide group with CEOs from west and mid-Michigan, along with university presidents.

If Michigan was to bounce back from the dismal first decade of the 21st Century when the state lost 1 million jobs, the BLM leaders felt, it would need to acknowledge and confront the hard realities of global competition.

Now that Michigan has trimmed its debt, grown jobs and improved its credit rating, “it would be easy to breathe a sigh of relief and carry on as we always have,” Rothwell said. “But the simple truth is, Michigan can’t afford to do that anymore. The world has changed, and we need to keep our collective feet on the gas so we don’t fall behind again.”

The timing of the turnaround plan update coincides with the 2014 election cycle. BLM, as it has in the past, will chart the positions of candidates for state office and how those positions track with BLM’s economic growth priorities. Both the turnaround plan and future candidate scorecards will appear on the BLM website, www.businessleadersformichigan.com.

Michigan’s CEO group has done a public service by leading the charge to get the state on a sound fiscal footing with a simpler, more competitive tax structure.

They need help from the rest of us, though, to demand action from Lansing and our local schools and towns.

Fix the doggone roads, please.

And improve our educational performance.

Absent meaningful progress on education and basic infrastructure, Michigan’s aim of becoming a Top 10 state economy is a pipe dream.